BlackBerry 10 Officially Reaches Over 100,000 Apps Before U.S. Launch

Big news officially coming out of Waterloo, ON this morning. BlackBerry has just sent out the press release below in which in confirms it has indeed hit the 100,000 apps mark by U.S. launch.
Earlier this week, Thorsten Heins said they would be reaching this goal, and it's nice to know it can now be officially confirmed. Also big news is that Amazon Kindle will be dropping today at some point in time. As soon as it does, we'll be sure to let you guys know. Check the press release below for more!
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BlackBerry 10 Now Offers More Than 100,000 Applications to Customers

Application catalog grows by more than 30,000 apps in seven weeks

More top brands building for BlackBerry 10 as platform launches in the U.S.

WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - March 21, 2013) - Developers continue to support BlackBerry® 10, bringing more than 30,000 new applications to the platform over the past seven weeks. BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: BBRY)(TSX: BB) today announced that BlackBerry 10 customers now have access to more than 100,000 applications for the BlackBerry® Z10 smartphone on the BlackBerry® World™ storefront.

Today, Amazon Kindle, OpenTable and The Wall Street Journal are available to BlackBerry 10 customers and in the coming weeks CNN, The Daily Show Headlines, eBay, eMusic, Maxim, MLB at Bat, MTV News, Pageonce, PGA, Rdio, Skype, Soundhound and Viber will be available for download or purchase.

"The response to the BlackBerry 10 platform and applications has been outstanding. Customers are thrilled with the applications already available, and the catalog just keeps growing, now with more than 100,000 apps," said Martyn Mallick, Vice President, Global Alliances at BlackBerry. "Top brands and application providers are joining us every day and are seeing the benefits of being early supporters of the new platform. We constantly hear from developers that the BlackBerry 10 tools are easy to build with and that we provide opportunities for app differentiation that they do not see on other platforms."

"It now appears that the already impressive levels of developer support for the BlackBerry 10 platform are accelerating into the launch window for the BlackBerry Z10. The prospect of a very robust app catalog can only bolster momentum for the product and the platform itself," said John Jackson, Research Vice President, Mobile & Connected Platforms at IDC. "The ability to attract and sustain developer support is like lifeblood for any mobile platform, and it's not something that simply happens. This progress is a testament to BlackBerry's early and innovative engagement with developers worldwide and the innovative architecture of the platform itself."

BlackBerry 10 applications take connecting to the next level with the ability to leverage social, gamification, and integration frameworks that other platforms are not able to offer. Customers can easily share applications with those in their social networks including BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger), Facebook, and Twitter. Applications can incorporate gaming features such as leader boards, badges, rewards and more using the Scoreloop tools, and BlackBerry 10 applications can tie to core OS integration points to allow developers to create compelling experiences to keep people moving and flow with BlackBerry 10 experience features.

In addition to apps and games, BlackBerry World for BlackBerry 10 offers access to one of the most robust catalogs of music and video content for mobile users(i), with partnerships across all major movie studios, all major music labels and television networks.

The BlackBerry Z10 (all touch) is the first smartphone powered by BlackBerry 10, the re-designed, re-engineered, and re-invented BlackBerry platform. The BlackBerry Z10 will be available in the U.S. from March 22